News

Inspired by the memory of her beloved father, University of Dundee PhD student Megan Sinclair has created a new comic that explores bereavement while raising both awareness of heart disease and funds for vital medical research.
Close to the Heart will be launched at a symposium at Dundee Comics Creative Space on Wednesday 21 November. The publication centres on the sudden death of Megan’s father, George, who suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep at the age of 53 in April 2014. She says the event turned her family and life upside down but her determination to do her father proud helped drive Mega...

An American student was delighted to find rare comics, some dating back to the 1800s, amongst thousands of comics she catalogued at the University of Dundee.
Hailey Austin says she has found comic gems including Punch magazine, first issues of rare DC and Marvel comics, as well as drafts and proofs of early DC Thomson comics amongst the materials donated to the University’s Archives.
Hailey, a 24 year-old PhD student from Colorado, said that the mammoth task of cataloguing the majority of the collections took over three months but she would happily do it all over again because of the value these...

Students and staff from the University of Dundee have produced a comic to raise awareness of suicide in an attempt to reduce the stigma around mental health.
‘Let’s Talk About Suicide’ will launch on Wednesday 10 October to coincide with World Mental Health Day.
The dynamic storybook deals with a sensitive and under-resourced health issue in an engaging way. The visually driven publication addresses inequality, stereotypes and other factors associated with mental health and suicide. By using the comic style, potential barriers in traditional healthcare communications, such as sight, liter...

The tragic death of a University of Dundee lecturer’s son, whose organ donation renewed the lives of nine strangers, has inspired a new comic that aims to get the public talking about life after death.
The new comic is a collaboration between the University of Dundee and the NHS, and seeks to get high school-aged children and the wider public thinking about organ donation.
Entitled The Gift, it will be launched on Monday 3 September to kick-off Organ Donation Week in Scotland.
The 32-page book, written by recipients of organ donation, the families of donors as well as University and NH...

A new Dundee Edition of Frankenstein celebrating author Mary Shelley’s links to the city is to be published and distributed free to local schoolchildren later this year.
Edited and introduced by Dr Daniel Cook, of the University of Dundee’s English department, the book will comprise the complete 1818 text of the ground-breaking science fiction novel as well as dozens of commissioned images produced by award-winning local comics artists.
Broadcaster Billy Kay, who is currently working on a BBC Scotland radio documentary exploring Mary Shelley’s Dundee, will provide the foreword.
“Fra...